What Is a Boilerplate in a Press Release? A Clear Guide
Summary
A boilerplate in a press release is the short About paragraph at the end that says who your organization is, what it does, where it is based and where to find it online. Keep it between 50 and 100 words, built from facts a journalist can verify: your customers, your product, your city, one proof point and your website. Cut slogans, superlatives and calls to action, review the paragraph every quarter, and keep one master version across all your releases.
A boilerplate in a press release is the short "About" paragraph at the bottom, the one that says who your organization is, what it does and where to find it online. It stays almost identical from one release to the next, while the news above it changes. So what is a boilerplate in a press release, in practice? A paragraph of 50 to 100 words with no adjectives you cannot prove.
Most boilerplates fail for the opposite reason: they say everything and prove nothing. Here is how to write one that a journalist can lift into a story without editing.
What does a press release boilerplate actually do?
A boilerplate is written for the reader who has already decided your news is worth a line. That reader is usually a journalist, an editor or a blogger who needs one accurate sentence to describe your company in their own piece.
So the job is narrow. It defines you, it gives a fact or two a reporter can verify, and it points to your website. It does not sell. It does not repeat the announcement. A boilerplate that reads like an ad forces the journalist to rewrite it, and rewriting is the step where your company name gets shortened, misdescribed or dropped.
What changes in practice is this: a good boilerplate gets copied word for word. That is the real test. Would a reporter paste it as is?
Where does the boilerplate go, and what is it called?
It sits at the very end of the release, after the body and usually after the quotes, under a heading such as "About [Company]". Some wire services and agencies call it the "About" section, the "company description" or the "boilerplate". It is the same thing.
Directly under it, most releases add a separate media contact block with a name, an email address and a phone number. Keep the two apart. The boilerplate describes the organization and stays stable. The contact block changes with each campaign and each spokesperson.
In an email pitch, the boilerplate is usually dropped or cut to one sentence. In a full release going out on a wire, it stays.
How long should a boilerplate be?
Shorter than you think. One practical guide from a PR firm recommends keeping it to 100 words or less, and ideally under 50. It cites a 44-word boilerplate from an industry coalition as a good model, and a 174-word hotel-chain version as the cautionary example.
There are two reasons to cut. Editors read less boilerplate every year, and wire services charge by length: the same guide notes that a base rate typically covers the first 400 words of a release, with an extra fee for each additional 100. A 250-word company history can push a release into the next pricing tier on its own.
Three cases where short helps, two where it bites. Short helps when you distribute widely, when your company is well known, and when your release is already long. It bites when you are a new company nobody has heard of, or when you work in a regulated sector that requires a specific disclosure line. In those cases, keep the extra sentence, but cut elsewhere.
What goes into a boilerplate, line by line?
Think of it as five facts in a fixed order. Each one answers a question the reporter would otherwise have to look up.
Who you help and what you do
Open with the customer and the product, in plain nouns. "Acme makes scheduling software for independent physiotherapy clinics" beats "Acme is a leading innovator in healthcare solutions". The first sentence can be checked. The second cannot.
Where you are based
Give the headquarters city and, if relevant, the number of other offices. A reporter writing a local angle needs this line more than any other.
One proof point
Replace "industry leader" with something countable: the number of customers, the year you were founded, a funding round, an award with a name. A single verifiable fact does more than three adjectives.
Your web address
Name the site in full, with the company name linked or the URL in parentheses. Skip social media handles; they date quickly and clutter the paragraph.
Optional extras
A stock ticker for listed companies, a founding year if it is notable, headcount or revenue if it fits your story. If you are unsure whether an extra belongs, it does not.
Which boilerplate mistakes do editors cut first?
Editors delete in a predictable order. Slogans go first, then superlatives, then anything that sounds like a call to action. After that, the length trims itself.
Marketing slogans. "Redefining what's possible" tells nobody anything. Cut it.
Self-awarded titles. "The world's most trusted platform" needs a source, and usually does not have one.
Calls to action. Phone numbers and "Sign up today" belong in the contact block or the body, not here.
Footnotes and legal asterisks. If a claim needs a footnote, it does not belong in the paragraph.
A stale description. A boilerplate written two years ago may still mention a product you retired. Review it every quarter or every six months, and certainly before any funding or leadership announcement.
Skip the temptation to write a different boilerplate for every release. One master version, reviewed on a schedule, is easier to keep accurate.
A before and after you can steal
Here is the kind of paragraph that arrives in a newsroom inbox (78 words):
Northline is a revolutionary, award-winning, industry-leading provider of cutting-edge cloud solutions that empower businesses of all sizes to unlock their full potential. Founded by passionate entrepreneurs with a vision for innovation, Northline is committed to delivering exceptional value to customers worldwide. Call us today at 555-0142 or follow us on every social platform to learn more about how we can transform your business.
The concrete test: strip every claim a reporter cannot check, then ask what is left. Almost nothing. Rewritten (41 words):
Northline makes invoicing software for freelancers and small studios. Founded in 2019 and based in Ottawa, the company has about 12,000 paying customers and a team of 18. More at northline.example.
The second version is half the length and carries three facts instead of zero. It is also the version a journalist will actually paste.
Boilerplate, mission statement, "About us" page: what is the difference?
People mix these up, and the confusion produces boilerplates that read like web pages.
A mission statement says why the organization exists. It is aspirational and internal. A reporter has no use for it.
An "About us" page is long-form and written for customers, investors and candidates. It can carry history, values, team photos and a founder story. Nobody pastes it into a news article.
A boilerplate is the compressed, factual extract of both. It borrows the "what we do" from the page and leaves the "why we care" behind. If your boilerplate still contains the word "passionate", it has wandered into mission-statement territory.
One useful habit: write the "About us" page last, after the boilerplate. Starting from the 50-word version forces you to decide which facts matter, and the longer page then expands on those facts instead of burying them.
What if you have several brands, a parent company or a nonprofit?
Multi-brand organizations are where boilerplates balloon. A parent company with five subsidiaries tends to list all five, plus a history, plus a ticker, and the paragraph reaches 200 words.
Keep one rule: the boilerplate describes the entity that issued the release. If the news comes from one product line, write a short boilerplate for that product line and add a single sentence pointing to the parent ("a subsidiary of Group X, which employs 2,000 people in nine countries"). Do not paste the parent's full description underneath.
Nonprofits and public bodies have a slightly different job. Their boilerplate should state the mandate, the area served and one measurable result, such as the number of people served last year. Funders read these paragraphs too, so accuracy matters more than polish. If a figure is a year old, say so with the year.
Startups with no track record should lean on what is concrete today: the product, the city, the founding year and the first named customer, if the customer agrees. Skip the funding story unless the round itself is the news.
Can an AI rewriter help with a boilerplate?
Yes, for the compression step, with one condition: you give it the facts. A rewriter cannot invent your customer count, and if you ask it to make a paragraph "more compelling", it will add exactly the adjectives you just removed.
The workable approach is to paste your current boilerplate, ask for a version under 60 words, and tell it to keep every number and drop every adjective. Then check each claim against what you can prove. The logic is the same as in any edit: tighten first, then restore only what earns its place.
For a final pass on typos and tone, a grammar checker such as Grammarly catches slips a rewrite introduces. If you are distributing to journalists at scale, platforms such as Prowly or Cision handle the newsroom and wire side, and each has its own limits on how much boilerplate they display.
Does a boilerplate help SEO?
A little, indirectly. The paragraph sits on every release you publish, so your company name, location and one-line description appear consistently across your own newsroom and any syndicated copies. That consistency helps search engines and AI assistants describe you the same way every time.
Do not stuff it with keywords. A forced phrase like "best affordable CRM software provider" reads as spam to a journalist and as noise to a search engine. Use the words your customers use for your product, once, in the first sentence.
What to do this week
Open your last three releases and compare the boilerplates. If they differ, pick the most accurate one and make it the master. Cut it to under 100 words, make sure every claim has a number or a name behind it, and add the date you last reviewed it to your internal notes, not to the paragraph itself.
Then read it aloud as if you were a reporter with a deadline. Any line you would skip is a line to delete.